


Maybe next time

by Dissenter



Category: Magic Kaito
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Platonic Soulmates, Rivalry, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Unresolved grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 11:25:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11485404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dissenter/pseuds/Dissenter
Summary: The first Kaitou Kid was Detective Nakamori's soulmate. A part of him always knew he was dead.





	Maybe next time

**Author's Note:**

> "Better luck next time, Keiji san", were the words. And they were true. Up until the day they would never be true again. He never did learn his soulmate's name.

Nakamori Ginzou was lying to himself. A part of him knew that. He clung with the strength of a drowning man to the conviction that the current Kid was the same as the original Kid, because the alternative was too much to bear.

He rubbed his fingers over the soulmark scrawled across his ribs. _“Better luck next time Keiji san”_ It said. And it was a promise, there would be a next time, there would always be a next time. They would challenge each other, and trade advantages back and forth, the Kid would run and he would chase, and there would always be another heist to match wits under the moonlight. There had to be a next time.

Except that part of him knew, bone deep, soul deep, that he was lying to himself. This Kid was close, close enough to fool almost anyone. He could match the style, and the attitude, and the way he moved, the new Kid must have known the old one well, but Ginzou could tell the difference, even as he refused to acknowledge it. He refused, because acknowledging that would mean acknowledging that his soulmate was eight years dead and Ginzou had never even learned his _name,_ that he didn’t even know what grave to pay his respects to. Acknowledging it would mean accepting that there would be no more next times.

He still remembered that day. His first Kid heist and he’d come so close to getting the drop on him. Had seen through Kid’s escape route while his senior officers had still been trapped in the unholy hall of mirrors the Kid had somehow managed to put in place. He’d caught up to him on the rooftop, and he’d almost had him. Until the Kid had done something with a smoke bomb and some fishing line and tied him upside down to the railing. Then with one sentence everything changed.

“Better luck next time Keiji san”, he’d said in a singsong voice that was half amusement, half challenge, and it made the words on Ginzou’s ribs _burn._ Of all the things he’d been expecting to find when he’d chased the Kid to that rooftop, his soulmate hadn’t even made the list. He’d barely had the presence of mind to respond, but when he did the way the Kid stiffened proved that he felt it too.

“This isn’t over, Magician under the moonlight.” he’d tossed back at the Kid, a challenge for a challenge, a promise for a promise, and he could feel the shape of their bond settling into place as they spoke. Fated rivals, a challenge, an equal, a game that belonged just to the two of them.

It was an unusual form for the bond to take in this day and age. Nowadays it was usually more straightforward, lovers, or best friends. Not many people found their soulmate in opposition anymore. It used to be more common, back in the days of honour duels, and family feuds, when it was all too easy for your most important person to be a respected enemy, but now? Ginzou and the Kid were the exception rather than the norm.

He didn’t care though, because facing off against Kid felt like _flying._ Constantly driving each other to new heights. Kid’s heists growing ever more elaborate and skilled, Ginzou swiftly rising through the ranks to lead the Kid taskforce, trading points back and forth in a game where the stakes were so dazzlingly high that thinking about it made Ginzou feel dizzy. He’d never felt so alive as he did at Kid heists, and he’d known there was no where else he’d rather be, and from the grin his soulmate kept just for him he felt just the same.

There would _always_ be a next time, it was etched into his skin, a promise of the soul. Kid wouldn’t break that promise, he’d believed that, with everything he was. And then one day, next time hadn’t come. Kid hadn’t shown up for his heist, and something sick and cold had settled in Ginzou’s stomach. A part of him knew, from the moment the deadline passed. Something was _wrong._

A part of him knew, but he refused to acknowledge it. It wasn’t over, it couldn’t be, and so when the Kid reappeared it _had_ to be him. It had to be him because if it wasn’t then he was gone, and Ginzou would never even know _why._

As time passed it got harder and harder to fool himself though. As time passed and the tricks were just a little rougher around the edges, the attitude just a little harder and more brittle, the glimpses of his face under the hat and monocle too young to be the grown man he’d known. He tried to ignore it, but the joy, and connection, and the grins just for him were gone, and it ached deep down to see someone else walking around in his soulmate’s shoes.

And the evidence just kepts building. Kaitou Kid met Hakuba Saguru, and the way they stiffened at the first words they spoke to each other made him feel terribly, terribly old. They were soulmates. He could tell. Just like him and the original Kid, and it felt heartbreakingly like history repeating itself. It hurt to watch them, sharing all the same things that he and _his_ Kid had shared, the light that appeard in their eyes, and the teeth in their smiles when they faced each other in the middle of a heavily guarded vault, the worst kind of reminder of what he’d lost.

But in with the hurt was something else, a slowly building anger as he put the pieces together. The snipers at heists, the new Kid’s obvious search pattern, the only half admitted truth that the first Kid must be dead. Eight years ago someone had murdered the Kaitou Kid, it had something to do with jewels, and snipers, and enemies in the shadows. There was slowly building anger, and a bitter kind of fear, because it all felt so painfully like history repeating itself, and if the repetition was too close then one of these days Hakuba Saguru would wait for _his_ Kid at a heist that would never happen. Another Kid would disappear without a trace, another young detective be left without a word or a sign of what had happened, to drive himself half mad with what ifs. Ginzou did not wish that uncertain grief on anyone. He would catch the ones that killed his soulmate, for closure, for justice, for vengeance, for the sake of two kids that were like a younger, less innocent reflection of him and the first Kid.

**Author's Note:**

> No-one else knew they were soulmates. It wasn't something they ever said out loud. Partly because they never felt like it needed saying, partly because if the wrong people found out there would have been trouble. They both knew and that was what mattered. Until Touichi died, and Ginzou was left to wonder.


End file.
